Secure your device with ASCON, the new encryption standard for small devices (Java)
On Feb. 7th. 2023 NIST (https://csrc.nist.gov/News/2023/lightweight-cryptography-nist-selects-ascon) announced the selection of the encryption algorithm family ASCON as new standard for encryption on small devices:
The team has decided to standardize the Ascon family for lightweight cryptography applications as it meets the needs of most use cases where lightweight cryptography is required. Congratulations to the Ascon team! NIST thanks all of the finalist teams and the community members who provided feedback that contributed to the selection.
My first impression was "why do we need a new encryption algorithm, we do have AES-CBC, AES-GCM and the Libsodium encryption schemes ?". But then I realized that these algorithms usually run fast on modern computers and smartphones because they have special instruction sets in their microcontrollers that optimize the algorithms running. The new algorithm is dedicated to those devices with a different chipset like Bluetooth beacons or sensors or NFC/RFID environments that run with limited resources ("small devices").
The ASCON algorithm works very similar to the well known AES-GCM algorithm as it provides an authenticated encryption and can authenticate (unencrypted) additional data ("AEAD") as well.
This is the profile of the algorithm:
- encryption type: symmetric encryption
- key length: 128 bit (16 byte)
- block length: 128 bit (16 byte)
- nonce length: 128 bit (16 byte)
- authentication tag length: 128 bit (16 byte)
You find more details on the algorithm on the inventor`s website (https://ascon.iaik.tugraz.at/index.html); the latest specification update is available on the NIST page: https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/Projects/lightweight-cryptography/documents/finalist-round/status-updates/ascon-update.pdf.
The algorithm was invented by Christoph Dobraunig, Maria Eichlseder, Florian Mendel and Martin Schläffer.
Find the complete article on Medium.com: https://medium.com/@androidcrypto/secure-your-device-with-ascon-the-new-encryption-standard-for-small-devices-java-ccb5447489c6
Below you find some useful links:
Lightweight Cryptography Standardization Process: NIST Selects Ascon
NIST final chosen algorithm: https://csrc.nist.gov/News/2023/lightweight-cryptography-nist-selects-ascon
https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/lightweight-cryptography/finalists
Website: https://ascon.iaik.tugraz.at/index.html
Specification: https://ascon.iaik.tugraz.at/files/asconv12-nist.pdf
Java reference implementation: https://github.com/ascon/javaascon
KAT (Ascon128 v12): https://github.com/ascon/ascon-c/blob/main/crypto_aead/ascon128v12/LWC_AEAD_KAT_128_128.txt
KAT (Ascon128 av12): https://github.com/ascon/ascon-c/blob/main/crypto_aead/ascon128av12/LWC_AEAD_KAT_128_128.txt
BouncyCastle Test: https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/blob/master/core/src/test/java/org/bouncycastle/crypto/test/AsconTest.java
BouncyCastle KAT: https://github.com/bcgit/bc-java/tree/master/core/src/test/resources/org/bouncycastle/crypto/test/ascon
Medium: https://medium.com/asecuritysite-when-bob-met-alice/ascon-is-a-light-weight-champion-bfd81853d61a
Online: https://asecuritysite.com/light/lw_ascon
https://replit.com/@javacrypto/AsconEncryptionWithJava#Main.java
